Here Be Dragons

So, I finally signed up to Permies...
I have never participated in any online forums (I dont have FB or Twitter etc.) but poked my nose into the Permies forums occasionally over the years and have consistently been impressed by the culture that persists here.

14 years ago, I was introduced to the work of Bill Mollison & David Holmgren. It echoed many things I knew about various indigenous cultures, but the systems-thinking approach resonated so strongly with my modern brain that I was unable to turn away. I had found an atriculation, a framework, of what I believe to be truth.

Since then, I have continued to learn as much as I could from as many perspectives as possible - and incrementally building the path I wish to walk. For the last 10 years, my partner & I have been moving to larger & more remote properties, implementing permaculture principles on increasinglly larger scales, all whilst saving furiously to buy the deeds to a piece of land we can call home.

I am so grateful to say that we are a couple of months away from moving on to that piece of land - 1500ha tucked away in the Langeberg mountains of South Arica.

It has been quite a journey to get to this point, but it also feels like the very beginning again. There was zero infrastructure, zero access, and virtually zero flattish land. There are baboons, and leopards, and commercial farming neighbours. I am so excited for the challenges & learnings ahead.

That said, I feel accutely aware of the importance of a supportive community.
I guess what I am saying is: I want in, if you will have me.

Welcome to Permies!

I might not be able to help you with baboon-related problems but I know we have a wealth of combined knowledge spread throughout the forums. I would love to hear your learnings as you delve into this new piece of property.

I hope to see you in future threads!

Thanks, Timothy!

Baboons are a very emotionally charged subject here.
Our aim is to use our situation (stakeholders, rescouces, threats, objectives) to model an alternative method of living alongside this incredible key species. It's sparsely charted territory, but I am not the only one trying to navigate it. So perhaps you will find a baboon related thread in the Africa forum.

I will try to share sharing my adventures from this new project and learnings from past experiences, as much as I think might be useful to others. It feels good to be able to contribute the tiniest drops to this deep ocean of knowledge.

pmg!!  baboons and leopards!!  I wonder if anyone else on these forums has ever faced such savvy and human-experienced predators before!!   Even bears don't seem to be as smart or dangerous!  You will be especially challenged if you try to do any kind of livestock or poultry!  I wonder if baited electric fence might be one idea to start with, as far as exclusion goes.  I would not put it past either of these animals to be smart enough to deliberately ground it out with sticks or soil, such as pigs are known to do...

Welcome to the forum!

I would love to hear more about your permaculture journey in South Africa.

I did not know that South Africa had mountains so I am interested in hearing more.  I live on top of a mountain.  Actually I love mountains ....

Wow! That's a challenge (baboons) I don't know what to do about. Panthers would probably be similar to dealing with wildcats & cougars, but baboons? I may not have much helpful advice to offer,  but I'm sure interested to learn along with you! Good luck!

Another thing to be mindful of if you are settling in remote wilderness is the potential of disrupting or damaging rare or endangered species or ecosystems with your activities.  The usual advice is to minimize your footprint for at least the first year and devote a lot of energy to observation and understanding of what is already there.  More than once I have gone onto a site to give a design consultation and just happened upon rare plants growing right where construction or other developments were planned....and some of these plants were ephemerals, only appearing for a short season of the year.  In many parts of the world there are plants and fungi that appear above ground for only short periods, usually following rains, but sometimes also after fires, freezes and other events, and some do not even appear every year.  If there are parts of the site already altered or degraded by human activity or natural "disasters" like wildfires, landslides, or invasions of exotics, it might do to focus your early homesteading and habitation efforts there, so as to combine the goals of permaculture and wilderness preservation/remediation, which might otherwise find themselves at odds in these situations.

Hi all. Thanks so much for the engaging replies!

Anne, Which mountains do you live in?
South Africa has a few different ranges - I live in the Cape Fold mountains, which formed through continental collision when the Pangea super continent formed. They are old, and layered, and although the larger mammals no longer live here (hippo, rhino, elephant, lion etc) they still host the most wonderful of natural ecosystems. I will post some photos later to give you some idea of the landscape.

Carla, panthers are a perfect analogue for leopards - not sure how similar cougar behaviour is. Our primary hope is to ensure our resident big cats are safe and thriving. I do not suspect that we will have any "issues" with them as our goats are kept close and will have a guardian - they are very shy of humans & dogs.
The smaller cats - caracals, civets, and serval - on the other hand, may be a challenge for our chickens.

Baboons are in a class of their own!
We have an unusually large group that live on the land we now steward and traverse to our neighbouring farms almost daily to forage.
Our commercial farm neighbours cannot afford the damage they sometimes do to their orchards, so the relationship is very antagonistic however, they do not "hate" the baboons and would be willing to change their ways if we can significantly reduce the damage caused.
I know that the solution will need to be multi-faceted and will be an ongoing project for many years. We plan to train a small team of baboon monitors who are able to track them daily to collect essential data on movement patterns, hierarchy structure, interpersonal relationships etc.  
We will also need to develop wildlife corridors to ensure they are able to still reach the rescources within their territory.
Over time the hope is that the baboon monitors (along with deterrents and incentives) will be able to route the baboons to these corridors and at the very least warn the farmers of when the baboons are heading towards their orchards.
I will definitely create a thread (probaby in the Africa forum, unless there is a better place?) to share our efforts and progress in this regard.


Alder, you could not be more correct about settling in the wilderness - I am constantly hearing Bill in my head: "We have no business there".
For a number of reasons (which I am very happy to discuss if anyone is interested) including legal, socio-economic & historical, this was the land we were called to steward.

The sale was finalised in late 2019. We moved, right before COVID lockdowns began, to a rental property ~40km from the land. We would have loved to just move on to the land, put up a small structure and go from there but.. with a land this rugged and large, there is MUCH to observe, at so many scales, that it took us 18months to even locate the quadrant of the land in which a homestead is viable. It took another 6 months to locate the very first structure. We have also identified the priority areas where our intervention can be most beneficial to restoring and improving the quality of native ecosystems and the services they provide.
Moving into the wilderness, with a permaculture heart...is difficult and slow. But we are committed to being more than net positive to this land.  

Dee vos, I'm truly looking forward to reading of your successes, and (hopefully very few) struggles. I wish you well on your journey!

Welcome dee! Please do keep us updated. I'd love to see the development of your corridors. 0f course you homestead as well.